Clean Eating Simplified! Eat Healthy & Clean Up Your Diet For Real

The ultimate clean eating resource for beginners! Whether you’re eating clean for weight loss or looking to start a new healthy eating plan, you’ll find everything you need to get started here! From healthy eating tips to clean eating on a budget & meal prep, you’ll learn everything you need to know about proper nutrition on a clean diet – including the best healthy foods, fruits & vegetables to stock your pantry!

More Energy: Eating a diet full of healthy foods nourishes your body and gives you energy. A Clean Eating diet can also help stabilize blood sugar levels by providing you sustainable energy throughout the day so you won’t be going from a sugar high to sugar crash!

Clear Skin: Eliminating processed foods and eating more Omega-3’s like salmon along with fruits and vegetables is believed to clear complexions especially those who suffer from acne.

Clean Eating Tips

Cook at Home

90% of the time you’re guaranteed a healthier more nourishing meal than anything you could order at a restaurant or fast food joint. (Including salad) When you cook at home, you’re in control of what goes into the food – there’s no guesswork involved. If you don’t consider yourself a chef or barely know your way around a kitchen – no worries! Start with simple recipes with 2-3 ingredients & build your way up to more complicated methods.

Meal Planning & Your Budget On A Clean Eating Diet

Prep vegetables & fruits once a week & store in containers to portion out for the week’s meals

Cook once – eat twice: Double recipes so you can enjoy leftovers for lunch or dinner

Eat What You Love – Don’t Force Yourself to Eat Anything – If you’ve never loved spinach chances are that won’t change. Don’t make yourself eat something because it made the superfoods list. There are plenty of options!

Progress Over Perfection – Don’t overly criticize yourself if your recipe didn’t work out – learn from it & move on. Very few people turn into Martha Stewart overnight.

Clean Eating Tip: Read The Labels

“If you can’t read it, don’t eat it!”

Check for preservatives, unhealthy fats and added sugar.

Label Reading 101

Check The Serving Size – Servings Per Container: Most foods contain more than one serving!

Sugar-Free – Many manufacturers break up the sugar by using lesser known names for sugar. There are over 50 sugar aliases – but some of the usual suspects are fructose, brown rice syrup, barley malt, & corn syrup.

Fat-Free or Reduced Fat – Low fat doesn’t mean healthy – & when manufacturers take out fat most of the flavor is removed. So, they replace it with sugar, which is not healthy.

Made With Real Fruit – You know what is made with “real fruit”? Fruit Roll-Ups! Go for the whole food – healthy fruits & vegetables do not come in a box.

All Natural – Sounds healthy, but consider there is no legal definition for what All Natural is. Food manufacturers can label anything with All or 100% Natural. Check. instead for USDA Certified Organic

Whole Grain – Another technicality. All the Whole Grain label means is that there is a whole grain in the ingredients. Somewhere – mixed in with the flour. Check instead for 100% Whole Grain.

Grass-Fed – You’d think it means the animals used to provide the meat & dairy were fed grass exclusively but as a labeling claim – not so much. Look for seals for American Grassfed or PCO Certified 100% Grassfed.

Clean Eating Produce

Organic Is The Ultimate – By sticking to organic produce, you can be certain chemicals like pesticides & hormones stay off your plate

The Dirty Dozen & The Clean Fifteen

Every year since 2004 the Environmental Working Group (EWG) releases their Shoppers Guide to Pesticides in Produce. The Dirty Dozen is a list of the top 12 fruits & vegetables containing the highest amount of pesticides – steering the EWG to recommend opting for organic. The Clean Fifteen contains the least & are safe to buy conventionally. Both lists are based on data from the United States Department of Agriculture & The USDA’s Pesticide Testing Program as well as the Food & Drug Administration.

What To Avoid On A Clean Eating Diet

Stay Away from Processed Foods

Processed foods are off limits because they have been modified (or changed) from their natural state. Stick to whole foods – those that occur in nature and don’t require flashy packaging.

Avoid Refined Grains & Sugar

White Bread

White Pasta

White Flour

White Rice

Sugar

High Fructose Corn Syrup

Sugary Drinks: Sodas, Juice

Cereals

Crackers

Chips

Cookies

Fast Food – especially Fried

Frozen Pizza

Baked Goods: Doughnuts, Muffins, Pastries, Pies

Trans Fats

Fried Foods

Vegetable Shortening

*Anything with Hydrogenated Oil

Processed Meats

The World Health Organization defines processed food as Any meat that has been modified from its natural state “Through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking or other processes to enhance flavor or preserve preservation.”

Cured Bacon

Beef Jerky

Sausage

Salami

Salted & Cured Meat

Smoked Meat

Deli Meat

Hot Dogs

Pepperoni

Processed Cheese

Processed cheese is not 100% cheese. It’s not even 75% cheese. Salt, preservatives, food dyes, emulsifiers, vegetable oil & other artificial ingredients are added to processed cheese & can take up to 50% of the ingredients! Why all the extra stuff? Makes it cheaper for the manufacturer, the seller & you.

Spreadable Cheese

String Cheese

Pre-Sliced Cheese

Spray Cheese

Individually Wrapped Cheese

Clean Eating & A Low Carb Diet

In case you’re wondering if you can combine a low carb & clean eating diet – the answer is yes! With a few modifications, of course!

No Grains, Bread, Pasta or Rice: Grains, bread, pasta, rice, and beans all have too many carbohydrates to be considered low carb or keto.

Fruits: To keep it low carb or keto limit fruits to 1/2 cup per day. And stick to blackberries, blueberries, strawberries & raspberries. The other fruits contain too many sugars to be considered keto!

Vegetables: Vegetables also need to be limited: stick to non-starchy veggies & don’t include root vegetables like potatoes, sweet potatoes, or butternut squash.

Dairy: On a clean version of keto ideally you’ll skip dairy altogether, but if it’s a must-have for you, limit yourself to 1 cup per day & stay away from processed cheese!

Reader Interactions

(6) Comments

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